Research on immigrant women in the last ten years has focused on developing a gendered understanding of the relationships among family, work, and migration. From this emerges a view of women as active agents in the migration process – using migration as an economic option that deals with gender ideology and practice. Migration among Puerto Rican women is an interesting case study with which to examine these relationships given the prominent role of women in this migration history and that the role of family characteristics have not been sufficiently studied with this population. This paper examines the effect of family indicators on migration from, and return migration to, Puerto Rico among women in the 1980s. It appears that women use migration to gain independence as single women and mothers since unmarried women were more likely to migrate from Puerto Rico than married women. On the other hand, we see evidence of a traditional route in which women follow men in the migration stream since women recently married were more likely to migrate from, and return to, Puerto Rico. Women married for longer periods of time are the least likely to migrate. Finally, it appears that women use migration to counter limited marriage opportunities in Puerto Rico since unmarried women were less likely to return there and since there were more changes in marital status after women migrated to New York than after returning to Puerto Rico.
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